The media dubbed Clara Phillips "Tiger Girl" because the 23-year-old showgirl savagely murdered one other younger lady with a claw hammer in July 1922.
Even within the scandal-hungry world of roaring-’20s Hollywood, the story of psychopath Clara Phillips was in a category by itself.
“She got here dwelling coated in blood and kissed [her husband] Armour, and stated, ‘I’ve taken care of every little thing for us. I’m going to make you dinner!’ ” stated Kate Winkler Dawson, host of the Precisely Proper Media true-crime podcast “Tenfold Extra Depraved,” whose fourth season premieres Monday, Jan. 17. This season’s title, “Tiger Girl,” refers back to the media’s nickname for Phillips, a 23-year-old showgirl who, in July 1922, savagely murdered one other younger lady with a claw hammer.
“No one had ever seen a girl like Clara Phillips,” stated Dawson, a historic true-crime writer, documentary filmmaker and journalism professor on the College of Texas in Austin.
Phillips was associated, by marriage, to probably the most distinguished households in the USA — the Mellons, a Pittsburgh-based banking and oil dynasty. She was a singularly charming determine who enraptured the media together with her beauty and shows of affection for her husband — whilst she stood trial for the horrifying homicide of 21-year-old Alberta Meadows, a (wrongly) perceived romantic rival. And she or he was one of many first feminine psychopaths to look on the general public radar.
Woman killer
The time period “psychopath” had not entered the general public lexicon then, and the media had two primary narratives for murderers, Dawson stated. “There have been loopy, rabid individuals who killed, and there have been individuals who had a psychological break instigated by one thing like a dishonest partner. However there wasn’t the chilly, heartless killer who’s virtually incapable of empathy or regret.”
That was Clara.
Phillips’ actions had been initially dubbed a “crime of ardour,” which Dawson stated couldn’t be farther from the reality. “It was one hundred percent premeditated,” she stated. “With psychopathy, their purpose is attaining a purpose, they usually’ll take away no matter impediment there may be. For Clara, she thought there was an impediment to her marriage.”
Phillips and her husband had moved to Los Angeles from Texas a number of years earlier. Armour Phillips was “a part of the Mellon household, however this was a poor a part of the household that went to Texas — not the multimillionaire and billionaires,” Dawson stated. Armour wasn’t a monetary mastermind, however he was a proficient grifter and con man, and he’d discovered an ideal accomplice within the fairly, unstable Clara, whom he married once they had been each younger, she nonetheless in her teenagers.
Clara got here with a historical past. “There have been different individuals in her household who had been very violent,” stated Dawson, and Clara herself had been identified to be manipulative, together with fabricating a narrative about being kidnapped as a toddler. In LA, “she obtained into fights with different showgirls,” stated Dawson. She additionally fought together with her husband, however was nonetheless fiercely dedicated to him. When she heard a neighbor gossiping about Armour having an affair with Alberta Meadows, a widowed younger financial institution teller, Phillips hatched a plan.
‘It was brutal’
On July 10, Phillips went procuring at a ironmongery shop, accompanied by her buddy and fellow showgirl Peggy Caffee. Phillips picked up a hammer and, as Dawson recounts within the podcast, bluntly requested a retailer worker if one might kill a girl with the software. (Assuming she was joking, the clerk reportedly replied, “Sure, in the event you hit her arduous sufficient with it.”)
The subsequent day, Phillips and Caffee confirmed up exterior Meadows’ office; Phillips, claiming to be drunk, requested Meadows to offer them a journey to a home on Montecito Drive, an space that was distant on the time. As soon as exterior of town, she requested Meadows to get out of the automotive to debate one thing together with her — and, after the lady vehemently denied Phillips’ accusations that she was having an affair with Armour, Phillips fatally attacked Meadows with the hammer as Caffee sat surprised within the automotive.
“It was brutal,” stated Dawson. “Most of the cops in LA stated that they had by no means seen something like that.” Phillips had struck Meadows greater than 50 occasions, and for good measure rolled a boulder onto the lady’s useless physique earlier than driving dwelling in Meadows’ automotive and cheerfully confessing every little thing to her husband. Armour put her on a prepare headed to Texas the subsequent morning, then went to the cops.
Trial by liar
When Clara Phillips was hauled again to LA to face a trial, she discovered herself within the media highlight, which she had craved endlessly. She flirted with reporters, declared her love for her husband and implausibly pointed the finger on the mousy Peggy, who wasn’t almost as effectively obtained by the press.
Non secular fundamentalists, who had been a strong presence in LA alongside flapper tradition, used the case to level to the period’s lack of morality. “This was an excuse to say, ‘That is what occurs when ladies are given extra independence,’ ” stated Dawson.
After a sensational trial, together with a second through which Phillips dropped her attraction and screamed at Caffee whereas her buddy was on the witness stand, the “Tiger Girl” was sentenced to 10 years on second-degree homicide expenses. She “determined San Quentin wasn’t the place for her, so she organized a breakout” from the county jail, stated Dawson. “We don’t actually know the main points — there are tales of her scaling the roof and dropping down two or three tales, however we all know she had assist, together with from her husband.” It’s doubtless she merely paid off the jail matron and walked out, stated the podcast host. Phillips fled to Mexico after which Honduras, the place she spent a number of weeks earlier than being recaptured.
Finally, she settled into jail life, earlier than her launch in 1935, learning theater and singing and studying dentistry. In an interview in 1931, the Los Angeles Instances reported Phillips was nonetheless remorseless. “I fought with Alberta on the highest of Montecito Drive to guard the one love I've ever identified … Armour L. Phillips is my child. He has been my solely child. He's my very life, and after I realized he was being taken from me, I fought, fought, fought — in order that I'd at all times have him.”
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